


La Petit Fraise

by GVSpurlock



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GVSpurlock/pseuds/GVSpurlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Favrielle nó Eglantine and the three women who changed her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Petit Fraise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crowmomma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowmomma/gifts).



Favrielle was the particular favorite of Odette nó Eglantine. Odette enjoyed carding her fingers through Favrielle’s riotous curls and telling her happy little stories about mice and magic. She was la petit fraise and treated as something of a beloved pet by the famed prima ballerina, whose legendary temper tantrums rivaled those of any operatic diva ever produced by Eglantine House. Favrielle never experienced the sharper side of Odette’s tongue, but once saw her reduce an adept to tears over the relative softness of the lambs’ wool presented for use in her pointe shoes. The adept babbled apologies, bowing herself out of the room, tears streaming freely down her cheeks. Favrielle watched in awe, tucking away the notion that genius was rewarded with eternal indulgence.

Odette travelled with Barquiel l’Envers to Khebbel-im-Akkad to be showered with precious gems by the Khalif himself. She returned to dance for the raucous prince and the dying king and the glory of Namaah, the toast of the Night Court and the City. She was twenty-seven when her Achilles’ tendon gave way, ending her life just as surely as the Ephesian arrow had ended the life of the Hellene hero for which it was named. It was not in her nature to bear her injury with grace, or dedicate her life to teaching; she could not bend, only break. Favrielle saw her surrogate mother, her elder sister, her protector dissolve into a pit of despair so bleak neither the laughter of Orchis House nor the compassion of Balm House could draw her out. Always slender and sylph-like, Odette grew thinner still until she disappeared. One day she was there, tiny and exhausted and silent, and the next, she was gone. Favrielle thought perhaps she had simply faded into the blanket or the curtains, and stared at the fabric for hours, until the Dowayne called for Brother Louvel, who wrapped her in the blanket and told her stories about the true Terre de Ange that lies beyond.

***

Mistress Anne took pity on her, wandering around like a lost kitten, blanket still wrapped around her like a cloak.

“If you’re going to haul that around, my dear, we should at least make it into a proper garment, don’t you think?”

Ten years old and miserable with it, Favrielle shrugged. The upheaval of losing her protector and then the move from the nursery to fosterling’s quarters left her her hurting and bewildered.

The older woman’s brisk kindness brought her back to the land of the living, occupying her waking hours with instruction on plying a needle. While her hands were busy, her thoughts were silent. Mistress Anne invited a never-ending stream of adept-musicians to practice for an audience of their peers and set a rhythm for the weavers. She was given the task of turning the blanket into an actual cloak, which was, strictly speaking, too advanced for a child, but determination guided her stitches. Under Mistress Anne’s supervision, she cut down the blanket to an appropriate size and used it to line an expanse of warm wool suffused with a rich forest green dye. The collar was more challenging, but to the older woman’s surprise, Favrielle required little of her assistance.

When it was done, the cloak was presented for Mistress Anne’s approval. Her fingers traced the trim, the seams, the complex stitching ‘round the collar, and found the work neat and fine. Indeed, it was better work than her most promising apprentice could have produced, and said apprentice was more than five years the girl’s senior. A quiet word with the Dowayne, whose intention had been to apprentice Favrielle to the master portraitist, and Favrielle became the star pupil of the seamstress. It was quickly apparent that while her sketches were lovely and her stitches fine, it was her designs that were absolute genius. She had an eye for line and color and a sense for trends and when to buck them.

Anne took commissions from outside the House on occasion, bowing and scraping before courtiers who disdained her for her marque. Favrielle seethed at the insults, perched silently and flushed on the footstool in the corner of the private workroom. The elegant scions of Elua had their jests, which Anne never seemed to hear.

“They don’t respect you!” Favrielle exploded one day after a pair of nuzzling lordlings loudly mocked their indenture.

“Of course they don’t. They’re self-conscious fools who put others down to feel better about themselves. Ignorance is no excuse, Favrielle, but it is an explanation.”

Her cheeks were rapidly turning the color of her hair and she opened her mouth to protest.

“Just think on this: they have their jests, yet still they come. They call me whore, but they fill my coffers with gold. Who has the power, hmm? I don’t need them to respect me, I need them to pay me.”

Favrielle chewed on that for a bit. “So we can buy the Ch’in silk?”

Anne’s solemn face cracked into a small smile. “Yes, so you can practice with the silk. What is it that you have in mind?”

She pulled a folded-up sketch out of her pocket, brushing aside a length of thread and a fluff of cotton, offering it up. The older woman examined it, fingers brushing the stark lines. It was beautiful work, a gown fit for a queen - a flaming red gown, trimmed in close around the waist and knees before flaring at the ankles and puddling on the ground. The top wound sinuously around the faceless model’s neck and plunged between her small breasts. It was a breathtaking gown, dramatic in cut and line. Anne met Favrielle’s eyes, anxiously waiting for her pronouncement.

“This is beautiful work, Favrielle. Absolutely beautiful.”

It was Favrielle’s turn to smile. “So when do we get started?”

***

The mermaid gown, as it was known, became something of a legend at the Night Court. Sold to the Dowayne of Jasmine House for her Midwinter costume (she was Elemental Fire, bedecked in rubies and accompanied by the Eternal Flame and the Fire Sprites — a glowing assemblage if ever there was one), it was a show-stopping gown. Indeed, it was said that Cereus House went completely silent when the Dowayne made her entrance. She told anyone and everyone about the genius young couturier (yet to make her debut, but oh, so talented!) who had designed and sewn the perfect gown.

Within a week, Anne and the Dowayne were positively besieged by requests from adepts of every house, begging for the services of Miss Favrielle. It was summarily decided by the Dowayne that five percent of a single monthly commission would go toward the marque of the girl, five to her mentor, and the rest to the coffers of the House to recoup their investment. Favrielle paid little attention to these matters, more concerned with the access to the world of beautiful fabrics, gilded thread, and pure glass beads that had opened up before her. Anne watched. And worried.

The night before Favrielle’s sixteenth birthday, she sat with Mistress Anne and surveyed her most beautiful creation to date. It was emerald green satin, the corset covered in golden-edged black lace, with a flowing skirt that just brushed the ground. It was made to precisely her own measurements for the first time, an extravagantly expensive gown funded by the five percent Anne secreted away each month. It was a ghastly battle, Favrielle refusing to accept the money, Anne roaring that it was rightfully hers anyway and in Elua’s name, stop being so cursed stubborn. Both dissolved into tears and embraced, before pulling themselves back together and returning to their usual emotionally reserved state. And so, the gown.

“Not bad, eh?” Favrielle asked gleefully.

“If you make something more beautiful than this, I’m not sure my old heart could stand it.”

“Pshaw. I have much lovelier in me and you’ll be around for a while yet. Can’t have you expiring before my first royal commission, now can we?”

Anne smiled, “Surely not.”

***

The jealousy of Mistress Anne’s second-best apprentice is as legendary as the mermaid gown. The story has spread beyond even the Night Court; everyone knows how Favrielle “fell,” how her emerald gown was despoiled by her own blood. It was a horrible tale, hastily spread and even more hastily quashed by Dowaynes not wanting such pettiness to spoil the mystique of the Court of Night-Blooming Flowers. The responsible party was expelled from the Court. Favrielle heard later that she died on the field of Troyes-le-Mont, serving self-imposed penance as a Priestess of Namaah, and couldn’t find it in herself to be pleased… or particularly sorry, either.

That Bitterest Winter stole away Mistress Anne five years after her “fall”. It was a bitter year, indeed, as Favrielle learned that she was to live under eternal indenture, paying off an endless debt to the House that raised her (and broke her). And then, like a miracle out of a gods-be-damned storybook, there was Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève. The Comtesse, the anguissette, heroine of the realm, paying a king’s ransom to free her from servitude. A debt beyond words, it was, but they understood each other quite well, the Comtesse and Favrielle. Each night, when she closed down the atelier, shooing home the obsessive embroiderers and splattered dyers, she sent a prayer of thanks to Elua and Namaah for the kindness of Odette, the pity of Anne, and the generous spirit of Phèdre nó Delaunay. A prayer for the women who gave her love, who gave her hope, and who gave her freedom.

***


End file.
